March 29, 2015

While Gardner Bohemian may well describe how I felt growing up in this town in the 1960's, this winter it's being applied to a huge flock of rare Bohemian waxwings (some 180 strong) who flew into town in early March and have been gorging on crab apples ever since. Yesterday while visiting my dad, I had the chance to visit the crabapple trees outside of Heywood Hospital where some 130 Bohemians were feeding in the wind-driven snow.

In a typical winter, dedicated birders will drive miles to see one or two reported Bohemians hanging out with a flock of our more common cedar waxwings. Bohemians are a wandering lot, creating no permanent territory of their own. They breed primarily in the taiga far in the northwestern reaches of Canada and Alaska, where cloudberries and insects are their delicacies, traveling from there into the northern edge of the U.S. in the winter in search of dried fruit. With this winter's prolonged polar blast, snow cover, and abundant ornamental fruit supplies, an unusual number found their way into Massachusetts, mostly as individuals. A long-term visit from a flock this size is phenomenal and gives observers a chance to experience a more natural range of Bohemian behaviors.

Remote as their breeding grounds are, wintering Bohemians are more likely found near civic buildings and golf courses in northern New England towns where crab apple trees are abundant. The Gardner Bohemians have been found foraging outside of the town's hospital, Elks Lodge, courthouse, and Mount Wachusett Community College where fruit trees have provided abundant sundried apples, which they boldly swallow whole, their determined feeding reminding me of great blue herons trying to swallow fish.

Their favorite trees are still strung in holiday lights and thick with fruit. Photographing the feeding frenzy is challenging. The birds sit motionless, chatting, and digesting at the top of a nearby 50' sugar maple tree. Then they begin to stir and the whole flock lifts up, swirls in overhead, and descends like a cloud of smoke into a single tree, feeding wildly for less than 10 seconds, then grabbing extra fruit, they swirl up again and back to their resting tree. They are very sensitive to noise and nearby movement while feeding, but became comfortable enough with my unmoving presence that they finally came in to feed right next to me. I loved seeing these wild denizens of the north so boldly and gregariously eating amidst the trappings of civilization, so I chose to leave these details in my portraits of them.

Two huge wind turbines flank the field near the Bohemians resting tree providing a somewhat jarring visual counterpoint to the whole scene, though the sound did not seem to bother the birds. On my previous day's visit, the birds left their roost and flew like a large black cloud down the middle of Green St. to the community college beyond. I followed them to see where they were choosing to feed and found them dispersed on either side of the road in front of the college, taking turns joining a gathering of blackbirds and robins who were feeding on some fruit laden staghorn sumacs near the road. Good to know we also have acceptable wild fruits to sustain them on their long journey north.

March 15, 2015

At 7 pm, the US National Weather Service announced that this evening's snowfall (measured at Logan Airport) brought our 2014-15 winter to a record breaking 108.6," an inch above the 1995-96 record, and this winter it never melted!

March 14, 2015

It may be fifteen years since I last indulged in Boston's March flower fest, then and for more than a century known as the New England Spring Flower Show, hosted by the venerable Massachusetts Horticultural Society (History of the Flower Show in Boston). Once again on historic Commonwealth Pier, now gussied up as the Seaport World Trade Center, the Boston Flower and Garden Show bears but a wisp of resemblance to the skillfully and extravagantly wrought displays of yore. Still, the company of a dear friend from Maine and this week's beautiful, more springlike weather made the whole experience feel like a familiar and welcome seasonal right of passage.

For me, this hat's magic was concentrated in unusual bundlings of potent plants - small luscious orchids, polypody ferns, selaginella, and mushrooms.

It was the miniature horsetails (lower right) that drew me to this bonsai container garden. A "windswept" Juniper horizontalis grows from the top of this porous rock fountain with mosses, baby's tears, and the dwarf horsetails below.

Tiny Equisetum hyemala 'Nana'

Ocean Spray created a very appealing diorama of a cranberry bog surrounded by the accoutrement used in the harvest.

In addition, we were pleased to see the Mass. Dept. of Agricultural Resources' particularly informative display on the Asian longhorned beetle and Emerald ash borer and learn about the Massachusetts Master Gardener Assn., a non-profit that formed to carry forward this in-depth training and service program that was discontinued by the state due to budget cuts. (VT, NH, and ME still fund their own excellent programs at the state level.) We also sat in on the wonderfully informative presentation given by the Rose Kennedy Greenway horticultural staff, who I met two summers ago on an inspiring tour of the Greenway with them and my Concord friend Paul Kelly (chief horticulturist for Boston's Federal Reserve Bank). A blog post on that expedition is forthcoming.

With its Suburu
sponsor featured prominently within the main exhibition area, the
marketplace occupying two-thirds of the entire hall, and commercial businesses producing most of the installations, the flower show has a decidedly more commercial atmosphere than in decades past. Still, the familiar
scents of bark mulch and mingling floral fragrances still evoked my long distant
memories of the sheer exhilaration of my first flower show experience in 1978, both as a visitor and one of the privileged few who helped to produce an exhibition. Having spent my early years with grandparents who were both florists and horticulturists, as well as gardeners, my personal sense of place has deep roots in beautifully arranged and lovingly tended green and flowering environments - and the flower show has always felt a bit like home.

About Sense of Place - Concord

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and to know the place for the first time. - T. S. Elliot

Sense of Place - Concord is a community and internet-based, shared-learning initiative launched in 2008 by naturalist and photographer, Cherrie Corey, and attracting hundreds of participants of all ages. Under its framework, Cherrie and collaborating colleagues, have offered an array of natural history programs, walks, and on-line learning resources that inspire a deeper, more attentive connection to place, seasonal cycles, and participants' personal unfolding in the wild and cultivated landscapes around them. Offerings focus on the Concord and related New England landscapes, Thoreau's legacy, and the area's rich natural history, scientific, and philosophical traditions.

In addition to the following co-sponsors and collaborators, seasonal programs and field trips are also offered for other community and special interest groups. Clients and co-sponsors: Carlton-Willard at Home, Carroll School, CCTV, Clark University, Concord Children's Center, Concord Free Public Library, Concord Museum, Concord Land Conservation Trust, Concord Public Schools, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Freedom's Way National Heritage Area, Friends of the Assabet River NWR, the Garden Club of Concord, Lincoln Land Conservation Trust, Littleton Conservation Trust, Massachusetts Audubon Society, Musketaquid Arts and Environment Program, The Nature Connection, New England Wildflower Society, Nature Playscape at Ripley, Oakfield Research, Sudbury Valley Trustees, Rivers & Revolutions/CCHS, Thoreau Farm Trust, The Thoreau Institute/Walden Woods Project, The Thoreau Society, Town of Concord - Dept. of Natural Resources, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Wayland Historical Society. Seasonal programs and field trips are also offered for other community and special interest groups.